Pragmatic Functions Of The Discourse Marker Oh

Discourse markers(DMs)exist pervasively in people's daily life.As a language device,DMs cannot convey any propositional meaning,but they can affect the speakers'expression of emotion and the listeners' understanding to discourse.The research of DMs originated from the 1970s.Up to now,more and more linguists and scholars have systemically researched them.As a member of DMs,oh has important pragmatic functions in people' communication and draws the attention of scholars at home and abroad.After a brief review of relevant studies on DMs,especially oh at home and abroad,the thesis used the data taken from the sitcom 2 Broke Girls(Season Four),analyzed the main pragmatic functions of oh both qualitatively and quantitatively and compared the gender difference in the use of oh.The analysis of the data reveals that there are totally 426 oh used in the sitcom which fell into seven pragmatic functions,including emotional expression function(excitement;anger;fright;surprise;disappointment),reminding function including reminding others and reminding oneself,responding function,supplementing function,mitigating function,repairing function and topic-shifting function.Among the seven functions,mitigating function was most frequently used and topic-shifting function the least frequently.In daily communication,women and men show similarities and differences in use of oh.Both women and men use oh to serve the seven pragmatic functions.However,a chi-square test of independence indicates that there was no significant difference in most pragmatic functions of oh between men and women except in the expression of surprise and self-reminding.Specifically,women used oh more frequently than men to show surprise and men used oh more often to remind themselves.On one hand,this thesis improves English learners' understanding of oh and its specific functions.Therefore,it will promote successful communication and facilitate mutual understanding.On the other hand,it enriches the studies of oh by showing the differences in use of oh between women and men.Hopefully,this study can help English learners understand the communicative features of different genders.